A junkie and a swimming pool full of cocaine
by RumAndMonkeys
Summary: The new girl at school tempts Edward in many ways, and every attempt to resist only digs him deeper into trouble. The beginning closely follows the official story line, but will diverge shortly. Characters and back story match the book for the most part.
1. Forks Was Perfect

_(Author's note: The first chapter started as a thought experiment, similar to - and prior to my awareness of - Stephenie's project to re-spin Twilight from Edward's viewpoint. I'm quite disappointed that she has stopped work on the project, though I understand her reasons. Anyway, the first chapter had been sitting on my hard drive for a long time before I finally decided to put it on a FF website. Everything after the first chapter is being published as it is written. Hope you enjoy it!)_

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It begins with a girl. Like all great stories, and, like the greatest disasters of history (see _Helen of Troy_, for example), it begins with a girl.

Forks was pretty much like every other town where I'd lived for the past 90 years – small, out of the way, anything but noteworthy. The climate was right; according to the historical records at the National Weather Service, Forks had the least number of sunny days of any place in the continental United States for the past 50 years. Houses were spread out, far from each other, so that our usual mode of living far away from other houses wouldn't arouse any suspicions. We had to live somewhat isolated; we couldn't have neighbors literally next-door who might notice that we never slept, or start asking odd questions. When Carlisle applied for a job at the hospital, he was hired on the spot; the hospital was ecstatic to have a doctor living in town. And so Carlisle's salary easily explained why we always had nice cars, nice clothes, nice teeth, nice everything.

Forks was _perfect_.

I was enrolled for my senior year of high school. I was ready to do everything that an average high school senior was supposed to do – school pictures, a yearbook, and so on. Little did my fellow students know that I would take my yearbook home and stuff it into the book case with 84 other yearbooks from around the country; this would be my 85th year as a high school senior. It was starting to get a little old, but the cover it afforded our family was well worth it.

Everything was going swimmingly. I hadn't harmed a human to satisfy my hunger since Carlisle helped me overcome my more primal urges. Another 15 years, and I'd hit a century of vegetarianism. Or sobriety. Or whatever you want to call it.

And then _she_ arrived.

I couldn't possibly have known who she was, because I hadn't met her yet. But that morning as I stepped outside the house, the town – yes, the entire town – smelled very different. I was used to the smell of everyone else who lived in town, and the slight changes as people came into town for one thing or another. But this was different. It was like I went to sleep next door to a sewage treatment plant, and the next morning, it was gone, replaced by a perfume factory. It didn't take long for me to pick up the thoughts of people around me, and I found out what had so changed the air in the town. One word: _Bella_.

To be more precise, Chief Swan's daughter, Isabella Swan. She was coming to live with him for her senior year of high school. The way her delicious scent hung in the air, I began to seriously doubt that she would manage to "live" with her dad for the whole year. Delicious is an understatement, even an insult. Take the best smell you've ever smelled, and make it 100 times better. Tempting doesn't do it justice.

She was a swimming pool full of medical-grade cocaine to a recovering junkie.

At school that morning, most of the boys took little notice of her. I should know, because I could hear inside their heads. After the male population of the school had finished mentally comparing her boobs and her butt against various other girls, or considering whether they had a chance of getting into her pants (most of them concluded "probably not," and the remainder were afraid of Chief Swan), almost every boy in the school mentally dropped the subject.

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." That's Murhpy's law.

As if the smell wasn't tempting enough, Bella was in my first class. And because I'm the weird kid – the one who keeps to himself, who doesn't speak up much (why draw undue attention to myself by knowing the material better than the teacher?), and so on, the seat next to me is always the last one to be taken. And so Bella got the seat next to me. Eff you, Murphy. I hate you and your stupid law.

After her delicious smell, the next thing I noticed about her was how dreadfully beautiful she was. She wasn't a super model, and only a few of the guys at school would describe her as "drop-dead gorgeous," but she was still very pretty. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," they say, and what I was beholding was dangerously beautiful to me.

I had to know what she was thinking, sitting next to me, the pale, wierd kid in science class.

And that's when it hit me like a ton of bricks.

_Nothing._

There wasn't a single thought inside her head. I expected something like that from Barbara Newsome, a.k.a. "Barbie," who was as shallow and vapid as the doll of the same name. She had the anoxeric waistline and fake boobs to match, which only made the nickname more apropos. In fact, I wish there weren't any thoughts at all in Barbie's head because some days it would almost nauseate me to listen to her prattle on inside her head about how beautiful she is, how wonderful she is, how nice it is to drive daddy's Porsche, why do those mean unpopular kids always resent me, blah blah blah.

Bella didn't look like Barbie's type, and besides, no matter how empty-headed someone appears to be, there's always _something_ going on inside their head, something for me to hear, even if it is just inane self-absorbed babbling.

Bella's mind was completely silent, and that bothered me greatly.

Between how pretty she was, and how absolutely delicious she smelled, my body was torturing me. One moment my stomach was growling, the next moment I was getting wood, and then I was brooding about how I couldn't pick up a single thought inside her head. I was determined not to screw up, not to ruin it for the rest of the family, and so I clenched my fists and my jaws, and somehow made it to the end of class. When the bell rang, I struggled to remember to move at human speed as I ran out of the classroom. Once I was around the corner and nobody could see me, I reverted to regular, vampire speed, and was gone in the blink of an eye.

Somehow, I made it. I didn't kill her and drink her blood right there in front of the rest of the class. Yay me.


	2. I'm So Hungry I Could Eat A Girl

_(Author's note: beginning to deviate from the official story line now. I honestly have no idea where this is going to wind up.)_

"Carlisle!" I screamed as I ran through the front door. It wasn't really necessary to scream, because with his enhanced senses (like all vampires have), he could have heard me whisper from the driveway. But I screamed anyway, because I was so upset.

Esme ran down the stairs to see what was the matter.

"Carlisle! Where the bloody hell is he?"

"He's at work, of course, but if you keep yelling, he's sure to hear you all the way over at the hospital."

I screamed again, and the rest of the house came running. That was pretty stupid; now everyone would get to see the spectacle. One of these days, I'll learn.

"There's a new girl in town," I stammered, to which Esme calmly replied "yes, we heard."

"Well, she's sitting next to me in science class, and not only is she beautiful, but she smells absolutely delectable. When humans are hungry, they'll say, 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.' Well, I'm so hungry I could eat a girl. I need Carlisle's help or she isn't going to live past sundown."

Shit. There, I said it. I wanted this girl's blood in the worst possible way, and I was ready to scrap 85 years of vegetarianism for just one taste of her sweet, sweet blood. I shuddered to think what I was willing to trade if she would just kiss me before I tore her throat out and drank my fill.

Esme put her arm around me, and said, "it's okay, Edward, come this way and we'll get you taken care of." The rest of the family just stood there gawking, and of course, being Mr. Mind Reader, I knew what they were thinking. "Poor Edward, I knew he couldn't hack it," or "As long as he saves some for me, I'm cool with that. I could smell her this morning. Yummy."

I picked up on Esme's thoughts, too. Hers were not clear and distinct thoughts, _per se_, but a raw emotion: anger. Suddenly she turned to the rest of the family in anger, and snapped at them, "all right, show's over! Get back to your rooms and quit making this worse for Edward! You heard me! Beat it!" I was so very grateful for Esme in that moment. My own mother died in the flu epidemic that killed me (well, to be fair, Carlisle killed me, but if he hadn't, the flu would have) and Esme had been a mother figure to me ever since my change.

Esme led me into the master bedroom and over to their couch. She motioned for me to sit down, and then walked over to a small dorm-room fridge. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Of course! I knew about the fridge that Carlisle kept for "emergencies" as he called them, but had completely forgotten about it in my blood lust. Esme opened the fridge, removed a bag of AB positive, and brought it over to me. Carlisle, as a doctor, had access to blood supplies, including the stuff that was going to be discarded because someone answered one of the screening questions incorrectly. They might have had risky sexual behaviors, IV drug use, or even something trivial like a tattoo in the last 12 months. Or testing might have found any number of human diseases from HIV down to a simple case of the flu.

In any case, it wasn't going to be used for transfusions, and was destined for disposal when Carlisle would "rescue" it and bring it home. None of those diseases can hurt a vampire, so it was a convenient way to rationalize drinking human blood. After all, the human gave it up willingly, nobody died, and the blood would otherwise be discarded. From a moral standpoint, it wasn't as acceptable as hunting animals, but it was a lot better than draining some poor homeless guy on skid row. And besides, it tasted sooooooo much better than animal blood.

I had a few sips from the bag, and it really hit the spot. I was like the alcoholic who was in heavy delerium tremens, and I finally got my fix. Like an alkie, it won't solve the underlying problem, but it at least gets me through the moment. My passions calmed down to a tolerable level, but I was keenly aware that this was not Bella's blood, and even though it smelled very good, it didn't compare to her.

She didn't know it, but thanks to anonymous donor number 1063460975344224 (that was the barcode on the side of the blood donation bag), Bella would live through the night.


	3. Our Choices Determine What We Are

When Carlisle came home from work that evening, Esme filled him in on what had happened after school. I was still sitting on the couch in their room, sipping the last of the AB positive bag, when Carlisle came in with Esme to sit down beside me. After 85 years, he ought to know better than to come into a room and try to talk to me like a father. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate his guidance and his wisdom – I most certainly did – but I could pick it all out of his head a lot faster than he could say it.

Carlisle knew this as well as I did, but he insisted on going through the motions because he really wanted to be like a father to me, and he felt like this was one way of hanging on to the part of us that had been human. If we ever let go of our humanity entirely, he reasoned, it would be that much harder for us to keep from reverting to our natural ways, and feeding on humans.

So he sat down slowly beside me, put his hand on my knee in a fatherly kind of way, and said, "Esme told me that you had some problems at school today. A new girl, very pretty, and she smells delicious. Esme said you almost slipped into your old ways."

I started to cry, one of the few human abilities that we don't lose as vampires. "Yes, Carlisle, I was ready to kill her and drink right there in class. I was going to endanger our whole family just for a drink of her blood." As I confessed my weakness, the tears flowed more freely. I was beginning to realize what I had almost done.

"So, Edward, how did she taste?"

"What?"

"Taste, Edward. How did her blood taste?"

"Didn't Esme tell you, that I didn't feed on her?"

"So you _wanted_ to kill her and drink from her, but you _didn't_? Right?"

"Quit playing around, Carlisle. Esme told you I didn't."

"Yes, Edward, and that's my point. You _wanted_ to, but you _chose_ not to. Instead, you came and asked for help. Each of us wants to drink from the humans from time to time, even I do. But we _choose_ not to follow that instinct. We make a free choice, instead of being slaves to our appetites."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'oh.' As in, 'oh, I guess I'm not such a terrible person after all.' That kind of 'oh'. Edward, I know that you struggle with being a vampire, considering yourself a monster, but you have to understand that your identity as a vampire doesn't determine whether or not you are a monster. It's the actions you choose that will determine what you are and will become."

Carlisle was big on the whole "our choices determine what we are" thing, probably on account of his father having been a priest. Four hundred years later, the old man's sermons had not lost their impact on Carlisle's mind. But I had to admit he was right: I hadn't killed Bella, even though I had desperately wanted to, and that meant I wasn't a lost cause.

Lost cause or not, I wasn't going back to school for a while. Let them flunk me for poor attendance; I'll repeat my senior year and have a perfectly plausible explanation for it. I just needed to get away for a little bit and clear my head.

The next morning, I put on my hiking clothes and headed off just after sunrise. I knew where I wanted to go. Our house adjoined some woods, and I could get to my favorite hunting grounds through those woods. I deliberately hiked at a human pace, because it gave me a lot of time to think. Several hours later, I had arrived, at the meadow.

The meadow was, per its name, a large meadow, but surrounded by some fairly thick vegetation and trees. It had not been touched by a human for many years; I could pick up some very faint scents of people, faded over the decades, but no evidence that people had been there since then. It was too deep in the forest and too overgrown for people to want to bother coming this far.

The meadow was my place to relax and to hunt. Because people never came through here any more, I could relax and not worry about a human that happened to wander by. Without a human scent in the area to scare them off, the animals wandered freely around. As a vampire, I don't have any scent to scare away animals. In fact, the almost universal reaction from animals is puzzlement. I can't read animal minds, but I get a decent idea of what they're thinking by looking at their expressions and behaviors. A deer stumbles into the meadow, sees me, and can't figure out why, with a gentle breeze blowing over me towards the deer, it didn't smell me. By the time I move with vampire swiftness to strike, it's too late, and another deer has died to save a human. I'm sure the deer doesn't appreciate it very much, but since I was once a human rather than a deer, I think it's a good trade.

So there I sat in the meadow, thinking about my choices, about living amongst humans and pretending to be one, about hunting animals and drinking their blood instead of the blood of humans, and my mind kept coming back to Bella.

I closed my eyes, and I could see her face, her puzzled expression as I looked away from her in science class, and clenched my fists and my jaws. She must have thought I was about to hit her, and not been able to think of a reason why. Poor girl, if only she knew.

No, it's better that she doesn't know what I am. So what do I do? Run away and hide? Could I leave Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, Alice and Jasper?

Well, Emmett and Rosalie, yeah, I could leave them. All Emmett ever does is taunt me. He's waiting for the day that I relapse into drinking from humans, so he can gloat. And Rosalie loves him so much, too much, that she always defends him, no matter how much of an asshole he's being.

Jasper is so new to drinking from animals, sometimes I wonder if he'll make it. Maybe I'd be better off not hanging around with someone who's as dangerously close to falling off the wagon as I am. Alice, I love her and would miss her, but she and Jasper are a package deal.

It's Carlisle and Esme that I would miss so dearly, and without Carlisle's help, I'd be sure to fall down sooner rather than later. No, better to stick it out and remain with the rest of the family.

Resolved to stay, and to let Bella live, I decided to have a meal before heading back. It didn't take long, at vampire speed, to come across a very surprised - and perfectly edible - deer. After I was done drinking, I mutilated the body to make it look like a bear got the deer, just in case someone found it before it decomposed into the earth.

And then I hiked back to Forks, to the only family I had ever known, and to the ever-present scent of beautiful, delicious Bella.


	4. Blood on the Pavement, Almost

**_(author's note: here's the parking lot car crash, which I think will be the last similarity with the book. Edward is getting a little hot-n-bothered by Bella, so I changed the rating on the story, too, in preparation for future chapters.)_**

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_I can do this. I can go back to school. I can take my assigned seat in science class next to Bella. I can make it through the whole class, even the whole school day, without killing her and drinking her blood. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this._

If I say something over and over again, enough times, it becomes true. I mean, it works for political campaigns, right?

_I can do this. Bella's just another girl at school, nothing to get excited about._

Except that she's not just another girl, and I can't help but get excited about her – the way she looks, and especially the way she smells.

_But I'm going to keep that under control. I can do this. I can do this._

I'd spent the last week doing a lot of hiking, most of it to my meadow, but other places around the area as well. I'd had a lot of time to clear my head, and to convince myself that I could resist the temptation which Bella unknowingly offered to me. Carlisle was a great help as we talked about his "youth," when he first became a vampire and could not resist the thirst for human blood. It sounds a little strange to say it, but I felt better, knowing that he had been weak like I had been, and that as surely as he had overcome it, I could, too.

So, on Monday morning, I went back to school, ready to face the torment, to endure it, and come through with everybody alive at the end. At least that was the plan.

Bella arrived in the parking lot about the same time I did. We parked in our assigned spaces, mine nearer the school entrance, and Bella's at the edge of the lot. I had just gotten out of my car when I looked up and saw Bella fumbling to get the truck door to latch completely. She was trying to do that without dropping her backpack, and so she didn't notice when another car hit a slick spot in the parking lot and spun out of control.

Humans talk about seeing things "in slow motion" when something terrible and/or dramatic is occurring. Since vampires move so much faster than humans, it seems to us that humans are always moving in slow motion. And yet, time slowed down for me, even more than it normally seems, as I watched the car spin out of control towards Bella. She still hadn't looked up. In just a few seconds, when the car hit her and pinned her against her truck, there would certainly be some compound fractures, with plenty of bleeding. If I thought the scent of her blood was bad now, wait until it was all over the parking lot. This redefined "bad."

I was across the parking lot in a fraction of a second. Before Bella knew what was happening, I hit her square in the abdomen with my shoulder as I pushed her out of the way. Luckily, her assigned space was on the edge of the parking lot, so when we landed, it was in the soft grass past the edge of the pavement.

Bella had a look on her face, like she still didn't know what was going on, wondering if this was the follow-up to the clenched fists in science class last week. She couldn't talk, because the force of the blow had knocked the wind out of her. But then she heard the awful crash, the crunching sound of sheet metal, the breaking of glass, and she saw her truck shudder from the impact. And then she knew. I had just saved her life.

Students and teachers came running to see if anybody was hurt. The driver of the other car had an air-bag rash, but he seemed otherwise okay.

Bella and I were laying in the grass. I was on top of her, with my arms wrapped around her. Under any other circumstances, I would have killed for a moment like this, but I had to remember where I was, and what had just happened. This wasn't very easy, since the fact that my arms were around her midsection meant that my head was right between her breasts. Even if there hadn't been an audience fast approaching, how would that look to her? "Hi, I'm Edward, I sit by you in science class. I just saved your life, and all I ask for in return is a little feel-up." Yeah, that would go over really well. I'd be lucky to only get slapped and called a pervert. And so, tempting as it was, I just laid there, like I was as stunned as she was, but secretly savoring the moment.

One of the football players helped me roll off Bella and stand up, and another helped her to her feet.

Bella, the other kid, and I were all escorted to the school nurse's office. Ladies first, I said, and so Bella went in to see the nurse. She came out a few minutes later, sat back down beside me, and said, "just a bruised rib, the nurse says I'll be OK." _A bruised rib? Ooh, can I kiss it better? Didn't you land pretty hard on your butt, too? A nice massage would help keep it from getting too sore, just call me Mr. Magic Fingers.  
_

Dammit, Edward, behave yourself. Behave myself. Whatever. I dropped the fantasy and returned to the here and now, which was trying not to pay too much attention to Bella without ignoring her so much that even the goth kids would think I was distant and lonely.

So, while the nurse was checking out the other kid, I summoned the courage to speak.

"Bella, I'm really sorry about your ribs. I guess I hit you pretty hard. Are you OK?"

"I'm better than OK, Edward, I'm alive, because of you. I'll take a bruised rib over being crushed by a car any day. Thank you." And with that, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

My composure didn't change much, but inside, I was on fire.

The next thing I remember was hearing the school nurse say "Edward, you're next. Can you come inside, please?"

"I'm fine, but a little shaken up. Can I just go home?"

"Edward, you've just been in an accident. Well, not actually _in_ the accident, but you must have hit the ground pretty hard, at least. I really have to check you out, heart beat, respiration, blood pressure, all that stuff. We need to make sure you're OK, and if not, get you to a doctor."

If not for Bella's kiss, I would have regretted saving her, because now I was really stuck. I don't have a heart beat, I don't breathe, and there is no blood in my body, therefore no blood pressure. The last thing in the world I need is for a medical professional of any sort to get her hands on me.

"I really don't want to."

"Sorry, it's policy. You can thank the Davidson kid and his lawyer for that. Remember that one, about three years ago?"

"Can't I refuse medical treatment?"

"When you're a legal adult, yes, you can. Last time I checked, you're a minor, and so we, the school, that is, are responsible for you. In the office, please. Now."

"My dad's a doctor at the hospital. Can we just call him instead?"

The nurse reluctantly agreed, and called the hospital. She explained, with a note of exasperation in her voice, the circumstances of the accident, and how I wouldn't even let her take my pulse. I could hear Carlisle's response, complimenting her for her diligence, thanking her for the call, and explaining that he would be there in ten minutes and take full responsibility and liability for examining me and ensuring that I got any required medical care. He put extra emphasis on "liability" and I could hear the relief in the nurse's thoughts, as she realized she was about to get a get-out-of-lawsuit-free card if anything was wrong with me.

Carlisle arrived ten minutes later, exchanged pleasantries with the nurse, and before you could say "bye, bye, delicious succulent Bella," (which I was smart enough not to do out loud), we were on the road, headed to the hospital. Saved again.


	5. The Hospital, A Play In One Act

Carlisle had told people at the hospital about the accident as he left to come get me, so we had no choice but to finish the performance. Like actors in a play, we played our parts. The _dramatis personae_ was pretty simple: Carlisle, the doctor. Edward, the patient. The rest of the world: fooled.

Carlisle brought me into the emergency room to sit on a bed, pulled out his stethoscope, and pretended to listen to my heart beat. "Breathe deeply," he said, and I forced air into my lungs, though it was perfectly useless to my immortal body. Next he pretended to take my pulse and my blood pressure. He wrote down average numbers for a boy of 17. Finally he pulled out a pen light and moved it around in front of my eyes, to check for a concussion.

Sometimes I think Carlisle should have been an actor instead of a doctor.

After my physical examination was complete, he said, in a voice meant to be overheard, "well, physically you're fine, no point in taking up a bed in here, but I suppose you're still a little shaken up. Why don't you come rest in my office for a while?"

Carlisle knew I had the jones, and once I was in his office, he slipped me a discarded bag of O-negative. Being in the hospital isn't easy for a vampire, even for Carlisle. He's had so much more practice than I at resisting the urges, and so I really needed a drink or I was going to lose it.

After I finished the bag, I sat in the empty office and collected my thoughts.

Bella.

That was the sum total of my thoughts.

I held her in my arms. I got to lay my head between her beautiful breasts, even if only for a second. And when it was over, she not only thanked me, she kissed me. Well, it was only on the cheek, but still, it was a kiss.

I was caught. "Hook, line and sinker" doesn't do it justice; I was a fish that had swallowed the boat and the fisherman, too.


	6. Does Chief Swan Own Any Guns?

The next morning, I went back to school, as if nothing terribly special had happened. _I'll play it low-key, don't come off as a braggart. If anyone wants to talk about it, I'll play it down like it's something anyone else would have done. I've got to get people back into the "he's mostly normal" mindset._

I took a huge risk by saving her life like that - what if someone had noticed me move across the parking lot in literally the blink of an eye? Could I convince them that they had imagined my incredible speed due to the stress of the moment? Probably. But I shouldn't have taken that risk.

Of course, there was the alternative: let the car hit her, and then she bleeds all over the pavement. Sure, that would go over real well. I was having a hard enough time when all her blood was _inside_ her body. I'm not proud to admit it, but I've tasted blood off the pavement more than once. The tar adds a little piquant aftertaste, in case you were wondering.

Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, back at school, back to pretending I'm a normal 17-year-old kid who did something a little above and beyond, but is too modest to brag about it and sure as hell doesn't want a freaking medal. _Just a chance to hold her in my arms again, and for longer than a few seconds this time._

As I got out of my car, Chief Swan's patrol car pulled up and Bella climbed out. Her truck was in the shop having the dent pounded out (honestly, why bother on a rust bucket like that?) and the window replaced.

I picked up on the chief's thoughts pretty quickly. He wanted to thank me for saving Bella's life, but he didn't want to turn me into an outcast. We all know that the only thing worse for a teenage boy than being seen with his parents is being seen talking respectfully with the police. Chief Swan understood this, and so his thanks were limited to a polite nod and a desire not to embarrass me.

Bella climbed out of the passenger side, and Chief Swan drove off. She walked over to me with a smile on her face. "Hi, Edward! I think I forgot to thank you yesterday for saving my life."

"Bella, you did thank me, remember? "I'm alive because of you" and a kiss on the cheek? I know I remember it. Are you sure you didn't hit your head, too?"

"Oh yeah, well, better to thank you twice than not at all. Really, I kissed you? Well, it's not every day I almost get killed."

"One, yes, you kissed me, but on the cheek. It was sweet. You're welcome. Two, wait a minute. You just said it's not every day, so does that mean yesterday _wasn't_ your first brush with death?"

"I've had a few accidents in my time, a broken arm here, a sprained ankle there, but no, I think yesterday was my first brush with death. Hopefully my last. C'mon, we're going to be late."

And with that, we walked to our first class together.

Bella was thinking, something that I couldn't overhear. _Dammit, telepathic ability, what's wrong with you? Maybe I should call you "telepathetic" because you can't do something so simple as pick the thoughts out of her head. You suck. Wait, I'm talking to myself, so when I said you suck, that means I suck. Of course I suck - I'm a vampire. Har, har, remember to tip your waitress, folks._

While I was busy arguing with myself over why I couldn't hear her thoughts, I was also wondering what was wrong - or right - with me. I was right beside her, talking to her, and yet I was _not_ lusting for her blood. I hadn't realized it until she had stopped talking and we walked together, that I hadn't been staring at her throat and dreaming of drinking her dry, to the last delicious drop.

Oh yes, I could still smell her tempting scent, and it made me ache, but it wasn't a blood lust like it had been even just yesterday. It felt more like garden-variety lust right now. Well, at least that's more socially acceptable than ripping out her throat and drinking my fill. Feeding on someone in public really makes everyone else around feel awkward. So I've been told.

Note to self: poke around in Chief Swan's mind. See how many guns he has, where he keeps them, which ones (if any) are loaded, and how good a shot he is. It's not like he could actually hurt me, but if he does shoot me, I'll have to play along, and that can get really annoying, especially if he gets a head shot. At least Carlisle, as the doctor, can pronounce me "dead" at the scene. And since I don't need to breathe, I can play dead perfectly. But still, I'd rather avoid it if I can.


	7. Operation Seduce Bella: Surveillance

_**(OK, time to earn the "M" rating. Don't say I didn't warn you.)**_

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I was already resolved not to kill her. If she died, I could only taste her sweet blood once, and the delectable smell would quickly fade as her body decomposed. Even six feet underground, the stench of her decay would be in my nostrils day and night for years until she finally crumbled to dust. My enlightened self-interest saved the day. And her life.

Leaving her alive presented a different problem. True, I would get to smell her delicious scent day and night for the rest of her mortal life, but we'd eventually get to the whole death-and-decay thing, just postponing the day when her loveliness would be taken from me.

Now I realized how deeply in trouble I was. The only way to satiate my hunger was to make her mine, and not just in this life, but forever.

I doubted that Carlisle would go for it. He was pretty big on making new vampires only when someone was going to die anyway. I was on my death bed in the flu epidemic of 1917. Esme was on her way to the morgue in the hospital where Carlisle worked at the time. Emmett had gone nutters on roid rage (c'mon, you know you wondered why his muscles were so huge) and hanged himself. He was unconscious and quite brain-damaged from the lack of oxygen. If Carlisle hadn't changed him, someone would have had to turn him towards the sun and water him three times a day - a complete vegetable. Et cetera.

So Carlisle wasn't going to approve of me changing Bella into a vampire when she was perfectly healthy and had a nice mortal life to look forward to. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I _knew_ that Carlisle would shit enough bricks to build a castle when I brought Bella home as a new vampire.

Well, if I can't have her forever, at least I can have her for a little while. And so began "Operation Seduce Bella."

Step one of any good military operation is surveillance. Learn everything you can about your objective.

I decided to go for a walk. One of the benefits of being so moody these past several days is that the rest of the family pretty much left me alone. On some days, I made the Emo kids look positively upbeat. So a simple "I'm going for a walk to be alone" was enough to get away from the rest of them, even Carlisle and Esme.

Even if it weren't a small town where everyone knows everyone else, I could get to Chief Swan's house easily. Remember how Toucan Sam pitched Froot Loops: "follow your nose! It always knows!" So, a little sniff, and I was headed in the right direction. It didn't take me long to get to her house.

The Swan house was surrounded by trees on three sides, plus trees across the road on the fourth side. There are plenty of places for a vampire to hide in the dark of the trees, waiting, watching, and listening. I picked up her voice inside the house, a mundane discussion with her dad. He was still shaken up by the accident - the "almost accident" - and he thought that Bella ought to be, too. The best thing he could think of was to try to talk to her about it, but she wasn't interested in more than an occasional half-mumbled "yeah, I guess so" and "OK, sure."

Even though I couldn't read her mind, I could detect a very definite uptick in her voice when Charlie mentioned how fortunate she was for "that Edward kid" to have been there at the right time and saved her life. Poking around in Charlie's head, I knew that he hadn't picked up on her new tone of voice. Hey Charlie, how thick can your skull be that you don't hear how she's talking about me?

Instead of mumbles of yeah and OK, now it was "I was so lucky that he came out of nowhere and saved my life. I'd be dead if it weren't for him."

"Bella, you did tell him thank you, didn't you?"

_Oh yes you did tell me thank you, and I enjoyed every microsecond of it, especially when your lips burned on my cheek. By the way, did I mention that I'd like for your lips to burn somewhere else on my body? Several somewhere elses?  
_

"Yes, I did. Twice, in fact, because I forgot about the first time. I guess I was still in shock."

"And you told him I said thanks, too?"

"Not exactly, I kind of forgot about that. But I'm sure he knows that you're grateful, too."

_But are you grateful enough that you won't come looking for me with your 12-gauge shotgun, Chief? The one you keep loaded by your nightstand for things that go bump in the night?  
_

Yes, I had been rooting around in the Chief's head, and I knew about the shotgun. The other guns - a few deer rifles and his department-issue handgun - were kept in his gun safe or locked up at the station.

After dinner, Bella went up to her room to do homework for the rest of the night. I watched a light on the second floor turn on, and knew that was her room. I moved quickly to a tree on that side of the house, found a comfortable resting place on a branch, and sat and watched her.

At first, she sat at the desk, working on her math homework. I watched as she played with her hair, twisting a lock around her finger and untwisting it, idly running her fingers through her hair. About an hour later, after I don't remember how many twists of her beautiful hair, and wistful sighs, and all the little movements she made shifting around in her chair, she finished her math homework and started on her biology homework. All I could think about was how much tutoring I'd like to give her in human biology. About a half hour more of playing with her hair, and occasionally reaching back with a pencil to scratch an itch in the middle of her back, she was done with the biology homework.

Her last assignment for the night was English, and for this she moved to the bed with the novel that had been assigned for reading. After sitting on the bed for a few minutes, she looked a little uncomfortable, so she got up and took off her jeans. Then she took off her shirt and her bra, and put on a t-shirt that was laying on her bed. Nice jammies - panties and a t-shirt.

I almost fell out of the tree.

She sat back down on the bed and pulled the covers over her legs, concealing them from my view as cruelly as the t-shirt hid her breasts. No matter; I had seen her gorgeous breasts, her beautiful legs and fantastic ass for a few seconds, and those images would be burned into my brain for eternity. Burned there along with the shame I felt for being a Peeping Tom, but I was willing to live with that as long as I could still remember, among other things, the perfect curve of her ass in those black high-cut panties. Wowowowowowow.

She read the assigned chapter, and then it was time to go to sleep. She grabbed her iPod off the night stand and put the ear buds in her ears. She turned off the lights, pulled the covers up to her chin, and started a song on the iPod.

I heard her mumble something, so I perked up my ears, and made out what she was saying.

"Edward."

My mouth gaped open.

And then I noticed some movement under the blanket: she had moved her hand down between her legs. Next I picked up the song on her iPod, an early 90's song by a one-hit wonder band called the DiVinyls. The song was "I touch myself," and I could her Bella mumbling along softly with the lyrics: "when I think about you, I touch myself."

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, laying on my back. I had fallen out of the tree.

_Oh holy shit, she's laying in her bed, touching herself, thinking about me. Maybe seducing her won't be so difficult after all._

I climbed back up the tree, and watched her for several more minutes, her breathing growing heavier and more labored. With one hand between her legs, she moved the other hand across her breasts, tweaking her nipples back and forth. Finally, she moaned deeply and said, "oh, Edward, that was fantastic."

_I'll bet I was fantastic, babe. And I bet you're finger-licking-good. That's me, licking my finger, with your juices on it. Oh, yes._

Bella rolled over on her side, facing away from the window, and went to sleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Well, not a whole lot of thoughts, but a lot of dirty fantasies about her. But there was one thought: how do I turn this to my advantage? "Hi Bella, I saw you get yourself off last night fantasizing about me, and I'd just like to let you know that I'm even better in real life."

I don't know how many P's you would need to spell the KER-SLAPPPPPP that will result, but it's more than I care to write. I have to play it slowly, and pretend that I don't know how bad she has it for me.

Yeah, seducing her **is** going to be "so difficult after all."


	8. Author's note

Dear Readers,

I've deleted what used to be chapter 8 because it went horribly off the rails, and turned out to be not at all what I wanted.

I'm trying to set aside some time to finish up this story in the next few weeks.

I hope to reward your patience.

Kindest regards,

s/RumAndMonkeys/


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